Help Recovering Files from Corrupt VMWare Fusion Image

[jhhaze]

I know this is a bit of a shot in the dark, but, I recently encountered this message when trying to load a vmware image (windows 10 on a macbook air)

The disk '/Users/jackhaze/Documents/Virtual Machines.localized/Windows 10 x64.vmwarevm/Virtual Disk.vmdk' has one or more internal errors that cannot be fixed.

Restore from a backup copy of this disk.

The specified virtual disk needs repair

Cannot open the disk '/Users/jackhaze/Documents/Virtual Machines.localized/Windows 10 x64.vmwarevm/Virtual Disk.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

Module 'Disk' power on failed.

Failed to start the virtual machine.

I am just a novice, but, through some internet searches attempted to...

Jacks-MacBook-Air:~ jackhaze$ sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-vdiskmanager -R /Users/jackhaze/Documents/Virtual\ Machines.localized/Windows\ 10\ x64.vmwarevm/Virtual\ Disk.vmdk

but got the following response....

The virtual disk, '/Users/jackhaze/Documents/Virtual Machines.localized/Windows 10 x64.vmwarevm/Virtual Disk.vmdk', is corrupted and cannot be repaired.

Jacks-MacBook-Air:~ jackhaze$

I'm at a loss.  I would like to recover some files from the desktop, documents, and downloads if at all possible.  I have created a support file, but it is too large to attah.  Please advise.

This all started when I apparently ran out of disk space.  No matter what I did it would not let me delete files to free up space.  It was like a popup from hell.  As a result, I tried to first increase the image size by 5gb, but, after that didn't work I tried to use a clean up feature from virtual machines, get info (on the top tool bar).  Ever since I have gotten the error messages above.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you kindly. ~ Jack

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

what's required to get a first overview, are the files in the VM's folder (from the support bundle). Please extract this folder from the support bundle, compress it, and attach the .zip archive to a reply post.

André

[jhhaze]

Hi Andre,

Thank you kindly for the reply.

I followed your instructions and expanded each folder chain, but did not see a folder named "VM".  It may just be my ignorance in regards to which folder your were looking for.  By VM , was that just short for Virtual Machines? The closest folder I have is named "Virtual Machines" and contains two files (a Is.txt and Windows 10 x64.vmwarevm).  If you could kindly specify which folder you would like me to target, I will compress and post the files in it.

Thank you,

~ Jack

[a_p_]

The closest folder I have is named "Virtual Machines" and contains two files (a Is.txt and Windows 10 x64.vmwarevm)

That's exactly what I would like to see. The files in the "Windows 10 x64.vmwarevm" folder - i.e. the virtual machine's metadata, log files, and the file list - should help to find out what can be done.

André

[jhhaze]

Very sorry for the delay.  I hope these are the files you were looking for.  If not, I would be happy to attach additional files from my support bundle.  Thank you again for being willing to review my files and help me to recover my windows 10 vmbundle.

Kind Regards,

~ Jack

[a_p_]

It looks like some of the files became badly corrupted, and it's almost impossible to repair them.

What you can try (after backing up the current files) is to create a new temporary VM with the same disk size, i.e. empty .vmdk extents, and start replacing the corrupted extents one-by-one until you get the VM to work again. The corrupted .vmdk files are listed in the vmware.log.

Ensure that you create the virtual disk for the new (temporary) VM in the same way as you did it for the corruped one, i.e. create a virtual disk with 60GB, expand it to 90GB, and

finally expand it by another 5GB to its final size (should be 95 GB unless I'm mistaken). It's important that the extents (.vmdk files) show up with the exact same extent sizes in the both descriptor .vmdk files.

André